Kentucky Equality Federation Wrong: It's stupidity that threatens us, not hate

The first reports said that a gay Jackson County teen was the victim of kidnapping and attempted murder. Three teens had dragged the victim, Cheyenne Williams, with a chain around her neck, out of her car and tried to push her off a cliff. The mother of the victim claimed it was because of her daughter's sexual orientation. She was "nearly killed," said one report. But the gay teen had the presence of mind to record the whole thing on her cellphone, providing proof of what happened. Gay Rights activists donned their masks and capes and leaped before the cameras with their verdict.

"It was a hate crime," said Jordan Palmer, head of the Kentucky Equality Federation.

In fact, it seemed the perfect confirmation of the narrative of gay rights groups, who seem to believe the cultural landscape is replete with roving bands of homophobics looking for gays to bash.

But then the facts started to become clearer. The Kentucky State Police started looking into the incident. Both victim and the assailants were longtime friends, having known each other since 6th grade. Williams went on from the harrowing incident to a job interview, and then to her parents, neither of whom she mentioned it to at the time.

But it didn't matter to people like Jordan Palmer. It was a hate crime.

When police investigators asked Williams why, instead of filming the incident on her phone, she didn't call 911, she said she didn't think they would respond in time. In fact, has anyone thought to ask exactly how a victim of such a crime manages, without the assailants apparently even noticing it, that the victim is filming the whole thing with her cell phone?

It didn't matter. It was still a hate crime.

Then police--and the judge--viewed the video. There was no chain around her neck. And Williams was laughing throughout the whole incident, causing the judge to walk out of the undoubtedly disappointing cinematic experience and give both sides a good talking to. Then she reduced the charges to misdemeanors.

But the people who really need a talking to are people like the Kentucky Equality Federation, who still, unaccountably, think it's a hate crime.

The Lexington Herald-Leader described the Kentucky Equality Federation as "a volunteer organization." This is probably accurate, since no one has yet detected anything resembling professionalism. The group has announced that it is backing Williams up "all the way." But the group may have trouble backing someone up who herself is backing up. Here is part of the transcript of Williams being questioned by the attorney for one of the accused girls:

Gay: "Is there any evidence to support the murder charge?"
Williams: "No, ma'am."
Gay: "Is there any evidence to support the kidnapping charge?"
Williams: "No, ma'am."

As most people are figuring out, this was apparently a prank that went to far, conducted by teenagers with a severely low level of common sense and a little too much time on their hands. Teenager doing stupid things. Imagine that.

The State Police don't think it's a hate crime. The judge doesn't think it's a hate crime. No one thinks it's a hate crime--except the Kentucky Equality Federation.

And once the Kentucky Equality Federation succeeds in hauling the FBI into Jackson County, Kentucky to investigate a good case of stupid teen tricks, they've got more planned. Says Palmer:

It's learned behavior, whether they are learning it from their surroundings or they're learning it from home, they're learning it somewhere. And we need to reach to those children now and expose them to diversity and non-threatening environments before they grow up and they actually do kill someone.

There they go again: saying that stupidity is learned behavior. Don't they know that stupidity is inborn? Stupid people can't help being stupid, and they need to be protected. In fact, isn't there a group somewhere that stands up for the rights of stupid people? Why isn't there a law preventing people like the Kentucky Equality Federation from picking on stupid people?

In any case, once they're done trying to convince all the people who now know this is not a hate crime that it is, in fact--despite all the evidence, a hate crime, they're going to start exposing us to their brand of diversity, which consists exclusively of the uniform thought that there is some sort of widespread wave of violence against gays by people who hate them. Which, of course, is a dramatic overstatement at best, if not simply false.

As I have pointed out before, anti-gay murders are almost nonexistent, and actual physical violence against gays by anti-gays is dwarfed by violence against gays by other gays--in the form of domestic violence.

But this doesn't matter the Kentucky Equality Federation, who, despite all the evidence, still think it's a hate crime.

New federal hate crimes legislation taking liberties with (and in violation of) the Constitution

Why don't we just suspend habeas corpus while we're at it:

Under current law, crimes motivated by bias against a victim's race, color, religion, or national origin can be prosecuted by the federal government, so long as the victim had been engaged in a "federally-protected activity" - attending a public school, for example, or being in a place of public accommodation or entertainment. The proposed Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which passed the House last month and is pending in the Senate, would significantly broaden the federal government's reach.

The bill, named for a gay college student beaten to death in Wyoming in 1998, would add four new categories of hate crimes to the federal code: those committed because of someone's sex, sexual orientation, gender (or transgender) identity, and disability. It would eliminate the prerequisite of a "federally-protected activity" and require instead only the loosest connection to interstate commerce. And the proposed legislation would make it far easier for defendants acquitted in state court to be retried at the federal level - a circumvention of the Fifth Amendment's protection against double jeopardy that has prompted four members of the US Civil Rights Commission to publicly oppose the bill.

See the rest of Jeff Jacoby's article about new federal hate crimes legislation here.

Who's being violent to whom?

In the comments section of my previous post responding to Evil Bender on the issue of violence against gays, Mr. Bender (Sorry, I can't resist saying that) responded to the remark on my post questioning how many cases there were similar to the Matthew Shepherd murder, which was a hate inspired crime which I, like every other civilized human being, condemns. In fact, I'm for the death penalty for such people. I wonder if Evil Bender is willing to go as far as I am in prosecuting the perpetrators of the crimes about which he professes to be so concerned.

What I originally challenged in my post was how many incidents there were similar to that of Matthew Shepherd. Now I'll give Evil Bender one guess as to what is similar to a murder motivated by anti-gay hatred. I'll give him a minute to think about this ...

... Ready for the answer? The answer to the question, "What is similar to a murder motivated by anti-gay hatred?" is ... "A murder motivated by anti-gay hatred"! Now in response to this he provided a link to a 2006 FBI report on Hate Crimes that lists the following number of murders motivated by anti-gay hatred:

Zero. There were no murders motivated by anti-gay hatred in the report Evil Bender cites.

Then, after making what he thinks is decisive blow against my argument (which, curiously, consists of actually confirming what I said), he waited for a response from me, and when he didn't get it on his time schedule, he challenged me once again:

I notice you still haven't admitted that violence against homosexuals is a real and continuing problem. I'm still waiting for you to do the honest thing and admit you were wrong.

Now despite the fact that my original question is about on the level of a first round question in "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Bender goes off on the whole broad question of anti-gay hate crimes, and declares a national emergency. Now I question whether the statistics in the FBI report constitute a national emergency, particularly when far less than half of the low number of incidents it reports are not physical violence--and none are the type of crime I asked about: murder.

Again, those who commit these crimes should be locked up and forced to repeatedly have to point out to people who comment on their blog that their data actually supports their own case, over and over and over again. That'll teach 'em.

But then Evil Bender made the following statement:

I suggested that you were downplaying actual violence in an attempt to make anti-gay bigots look like victims and homosexuals looks like the perpetrators, when the opposite is true.

Really? What Evil Bender needs to do is put down the FBI report on hate crimes and take a look at the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs report on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Domestic Violence in the United States in 2006. Notice that that is the same year as the FBI report Evil Bender points to that reports all of that anti-gay violence, so we have a good comparison.

While the FBI report lists 1,195 incidents of anti-gay hate crimes (most of which are not violent crimes against someone's person, and many of which are "intimidation," a definition for which I could not find on the site)--and, again, no murders, the number of gay domestic violence incidents for the same year is 3,534.

Oh, and four murders. That's ... let's see ... four more gay on gay murders than there were murders of gays by gay haters, of which there were none. And by the way, the report states that murders were underreported in their study. In addition, there were almost three times the number of violent incidents--maybe more, depending on the percentage of these that were incidents of "intimidation." In fact, the organizations reporting these kinds of statistics (which are themselves gay organizations) commonly list gay on gay violence as one of the top three health concerns of gays and lesbians.

Now Evil Bender says that I was making the perpetrators of anti-gay violence look like "victims" when I have now said several times that I'm for prosecuting them to full extent of the law--curious coming from a person who has charged several times now that I have misrepresented him. But he also charges that I have made homosexuals look like "the perpetrators" of violence against gays.

Well, I don't remember saying that, but for what it's worth, I will say it now: Most reported incidents of violence against gays are perpetrated by gays. If he doesn't believe it, then his argument is with gay organizations who are reporting these facts and not with me. If Evil Bender is so concerned about the well-being of gays, he would have more of an impact trying to convince gays to stop committing it against each other.

In any case, if Evil Bender is wanting an admission from me that I was wrong, I suggest he do a little more research.

New hate crime: putting a Koran in a toilet

We're filing this in the "Decline of Western culture" file:

Michelle Malkin asks the question, Which of these is a hate crime in America?

A) Submerging a crucifix in a jar of urine.

B) Burning the American flag.

C) Putting a Koran in a toilet.

According to a news report, a 23 year-old student at Pace University in New York was charged for the hate crime of C), putting a Koran in a toilet.

Go figure.